His Fairy Tale
by Shadou-sama
Summary: SGAxGodchild. CainxJohn. Years later, the Colonel will still have an angry red scar in that place. John was marked too.
1. Chapter 1

This story is the answer to the question, "What would happen if Kaori Yuki's Godchild series was crossed with Stargate Atlantis? What if Cain was in Atlantis?" This will probably be written in vignettes, but it has two parts as of now (so fear not, I will at least get to the second story and you won't be hanging in suspense. It will also be very Cain and John-centric. If you know what I mean. A warning for yaoi contexts.

**His Fairy Tale**

by Shadou-sama

_Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John_

_Went to bed with his stockings on._

_One shoe off, one shoe on,_

_Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John._

It was interesting, Cain reflected briefly, that he could remember many Mother Goose stories. There had never been anyone to teach them to him. The only time his 'mother' was near him, she ended up hurting him, never reciting such soothing things as rhymes. Although, considering the elite lifestyle of his home world, and especially the aristocrats of London, he never should have expected such loving treatment. That was what milk nurses and school mistresses were for. Of course, he had never had one, any care giver really, that would even look at him for more than a glance as according to his father's, Alexis', decree. The only time he would happen upon such rhymes was much later, when listening to his servants and their children or to the giggling voices of ladies at dinner parties as they indulged in childish behaviours.

Mary Weather had tried to teach him some, but the few that she had tried had chilled the blood in his veins. Mother Goose rhymes were never meant to be so close to his cursed life. The only ones he could ever recall had something to do with death. Solomon Grundy and his bride who had died by his hand. Baa baa black sheep that had ended the life of a French maid. Alice that was ultimately slaughtered by her own White Rabbit father. No, that wasn't a rhyme, that didn't count.

But now, lounging on the slim bed, trapped against the wall by _his_ sleeping body, such trivial things easily came to mind. Especially since _he _ hadn't even bothered to remove his shoes before climbing into bed. Cain couldn't even move enough to do much more than manage to slip his boots over his heel.

But then, John had earned this moment of impropriety. Lieutenant Colonel John, he reminded himself. He certainly hadn't gained anything else by saving Cain. This was his first night since he had been released from the medical ward after getting shot in the stomach for believing that his life was worth less than Cain's.

How deluded he was. How deluded he still was.

He shifted uncomfortably as he remembered that for the first time since his father, Cain wasn't wearing a shirt in the presence of an another.

There really was no reason that John had needed to put himself at such risk. It had all been Cain's fault. Sure, Kolya had originally only been interested in the Colonel after his vie to take over Atlantis during the storm. That was what had pushed that man to capture the ZPM from them when they so desperately needed it to save themselves from the Wraith their very first year in Atlantis. After defeating him, though, the Colonel refused to spill any more more blood, even though he surely knew that Kolya would not relent an inch in his pursuit of the John's – the Colonel's head.

"_You should feel lucky that the Major is a gentleman_," he had whispered into Kolya's ear as the others were climbing out of the hidden chamber. "_He is a real hero._ _He will even refuse to take your life when you are such a danger to him – to us all. But do not mistake what I am about to do to you. It's not because I'm trying to protect them, or anything chivalrous like that. I'm not a hero. I just want to test out my new poison._"

He had pulled a thin vial from his flak vest, swirling the amber liquid in front of Kolya's eyes. "_This is a poison that I concocted myself, from a few poisonous plants native to this galaxy. I would explain to you in graphic detail what is about to happen to you, but I really have no idea. But I'm sure when the Genii threaten us again with your corpse on their hands that I will find out._"

Because it had been a new creation from barely researched plants, the golden eyed boy had badly miscalculated the correct dosage. The ingredients hadn't been nearly toxic enough. So, after a few weeks of heavy fever and hallucinations, and a year recovering from the ill effects, Kolya was right as rain again.

That was when the Genii man came up with the plan to kidnap Cain to feed to a wraith while his associates watched. He remembered laughing darkly when Kolya revealed his goal. That the Lanteans would have to watch him die, hour by hour, torn between saving him and given in to his demands. How silly of him to believe that they would actually care, beyond the compulsory feelings of horror from one human being to the next.

He was the cursed child. He was the child that had been cursed by God, by his father's sin that resulted in his conception, the one child who could never love or be loved by anyone without their terrible demise.

Who cared if he died? He certainly didn't. He had been running on borrowed time anyway. He should have died at the collapse of the Tower. He should have died by Michaela's little friends' poison. He should have died when attacked by the vampire. He should have died when his father poisoned his tea. He should have died when his mother tried to slaughter him. He should have died all those years ago, before he could have even been born. That would have been the merciful thing.

_God put a mark on Cain_ _so that anyone that found him would not kill him._

_There would be no respite in mortal death for Cain._

He had even pushed at Kolya, taunting him, remarking how weird it was for a man to get such a hard on from watching another man. His resolve had remained strong, though. He wanted the Lanteans to watch him die. There would be no quick death for him.

So he turned to his mysterious neighbour, who turned out to be the wraith that was feeding on him. The wraith had said such strange things to him – about brotherhood, about teamwork, about companionship.

"_Well, I suppose our team would work like this_," Cain told him, his head hanging low on his chest and his limbs blissfully weak. "_You kill the guards, unlock the shackles around your wrists, and escape through a hidden passageway. There must be a hidden passageway. It would be unfashionable if there weren't any._"

"_This is human teamwork?_" the wraith had scoffed. "_Our two people are less alike than I had thought_."

"_I help by dying for you_."

The wraith was silent for a long time. "_You would give up your life to help me? An enemy to your kind?_"

"_Why ever not? If I have to be alone when I die, then I would like to help someone with my death._" _I would like to die knowing that something good came out of my cursed existence. Or something even more cursed, considering he will probably kill everyone I know now._

_"Perhaps – perhaps we do not have to wait that long_."

The wraith saved him. He had been willing to give up, to die then and there. A reprieve from his memories. But, he had supposed, if he was going to die, it might be best to die helping another, even a wraith, and it would probably be much more relaxing to die under starlight.

They managed to escape, barely. He had mostly ridden on the hard labour of the wraith. That was how it always was, he supposed. He had been raised to be a nobleman, a man who is dependent on others to survive, no matter how independent he had been – had to be because of his father's mark. Most of what he had contributed to their escape left him looking like a corpse.

Looking up at the sky, as they lay there in the field, dazed, lost and confused, he had felt ready to die. Like the only thing stopping him – the warm cage he lived in called flesh – was now so brittle that he only had to breathe to break free.

But the wraith wouldn't let him.

John appeared, P-90 raised as he staulked towards them, yelling for the alien to get away from the corpse-like body even as he wobbled from exhaustion. The wraith refused, obviously noting the way his weapon dipped as he walked or the increasingly clumsy steps.

"_If I didn't know any better_," he said, looking from the Colonel down to the boy at his feet. "_I would have thought you were a wraith. To give up everything to help another, that is what we live by_."

He hadn't even the strength to contest that. The wraith had then showed him that the wraith were not only harbingers of death, but could restore life too. _Kind of like Father..._

He should have realized it then. The Colonel hadn't even eaten never mind slept since Cain had been taken. The man pressed himself into service whenever anyone – his team, his men, acquaintances, even people he had never met – were taken. "A saving-people complex" Rodney had once termed it, a bit scornfully but also a bit gratefully.

It was especially bad when it was someone he cared about. Three marines had been needed to wrestle the Colonel – then Major – through the Gate for their review on Earth when Ford had run away, doped up on Wraith enzymes. Or when Ronan had been captured to play the Wraith version of paintball, as the Colonel had once put it.

And now, apparently, Cain had been included.

He would never allow himself those kinds of thoughts, though, and pushed them out of his mind. He pushed away any kind of indication before he even realized what they meant. Someone... cared about him. Someone would put his own life at risk to save his own.

But he never realized it before they went up against Kolya for the last time.

Now, John lay sleeping on his side with his shoes and stockings still on, one arm wrapped around him. Cain could only wonder if this gesture was an unconscious action to reassure him that one of his many charges was really safe and sound or if it meant anything more...

No, it couldn't mean anything more.

Then they had been investigating a new wraith-killing hero of a small but picture perfect looking world when they had re-discovered Lucius, who brought Kolya once again to their doorstep. Luckily, the Colonel had predicted Lucius's easily defeated courage and they had eluded capture right off of the bat. However, they had still ended up captured, but at least John had been free. Kolya wasn't interested so much in killing them all as killing Cain in front of them all. He had even commissioned a metal restraint that held his neck, his wrists and his ankles. His hands were held in place near his neck as the bars that ran from his neck to his ankles forced him to stoop, his knees crushing against his chest so that he could barely breathe. He remembered vaguely wheezing out some remark that Kolya was merely confusing his desire for him sexually with violence. The device did leave his arse conveniently accessible.

_Ah, now I'm finally going to die._

He wrote the pain in his heart off to the torture device Kolya had locked onto him.

But then John showed up. He could have saved himself, could have freed the others when he had more time to prepare and plan. No, he had shown up to save him. And he didn't know whether he was angry or glad at that. Kolya's men surrounded them, leaving no room to escape.

"_How about a wager, Colonel Sheppard_," Kolya said. "_If you can manage to outdraw me, then you can save this little minx. If not, at least you won't have to watch him die._"

Cain had thought that Kolya had forgotten about the sixty men lost at the Colonel's hands. Being out-manoeuvred when the Genii had the upper hand not only once but thrice had left the man's skills questioned by his superiors and inferiors alike, and even to himself. Or, perhaps, Kolya had finally realized that no one cared about Cain enough in that way to be properly horrified by his death, but that John's death while trying to save him and still failing would have so much stronger an impact on the Lanteans. More of the desired impact.

John agreed, even as Dr McKay argued loudly that it was pointless anyway, over Teyla's quiet admonishments, and Ronan's silence of disagreement but understanding. Cain had even cursed at the man, telling him over and over again how stupid such a trade was. Although, Teyla corrected him later, he hadn't been speaking in more than a hoarse whisper by that point.

What none of them knew, except for the Colonel and his unlikely accomplice Lucius, was that the Colonel had a secret up his sleeve. There was no way that Kolya could kill him before he killed Kolya. Not with the emerald glowing ancient device that he had wrestled away from Lucius.

Kolya crumpled to the ground. Cain thought it was a waste that he hadn't been able to test out his family's secret poison on the man. The Genii mercenaries fired at the Colonel to little effect, until that one last shot. The Colonel, with the help of the townspeople, had forced the Genii into a truce when one madman, completely oblivious to the will of his fellows, fired at John. Ronan knocked that mercenary out cold with one fist as the Colonel crumpled to the ground.

Now John was hurt. Well, he was healing. Still, Cain had seen beneath the cheerful white bandages to the gore underneath. He had seen worse; after all he had seen girls beheaded and the crispy corpses of men. But this wound... it would never be all right. Even years later, the Colonel would have an angry red scar in that place.

John was marked too.

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Takes place before the previous chapter.

**His Fairy Tale**  
**Part 2**  
**by Shadousama**

_There was an old man who lived in a shoe,_  
_He had so many children, he didn't know what to do._  
_He gave them some broth, without any bread._  
_He whipped them all soundly, and put them to bed._

Cain fingered the strings of the guitar. He never understood how the Colonel had been able to request so many of his personal things from Earth. The Daedalus had very limited space, and should be dedicated to goods that contributed to the success of the mission. That's what he always held in mind when he did the supply order forms. He first went to Dr Beckett, who gave him the list of medical supplies required in order of importance in case Cain could not guarantee enough space. Then Cain took the military requests from the Colonel, as they were the second most important to the success of the mission.

Food they could always trade for. Atlantis had its own filtering system for the billions of gallons of ocean water that surrounded them. But advanced weapons – the Ancients hadn't seen fit to leave some of their advanced weaponry behind besides what the Jumpers contained. No civilization that they had found so far had advanced enough in medicine to give them supplies beyond rubbing alcohol and bandages – sterilization questionable.

Unfortunately, no matter how much Cain needled the Colonel, he would never organize his list according to its importance. Because, according to the Colonel, everything he requested was of equal importance. If the wraith ever attacked, they'd need it all. Yes, it would be nice if they had a magical storage device that could shrink matter to fit nicely into the Daedalus. So Cain guessed at what was important, or if Colonel Caldwell was in the vicinity, he would inquire, as this other Colonel seemed to appreciate that one can't have everything. After all these months, Cain had started getting a better feel for what to order, as Colonel Caldwell had to make less and less corrections to his lists.

After military, he would then go onto food and living supplies, which irked Doctor McKay bitterly. They had four divisions on Atlantis, and if the Medical division and the Military division got into the first and second position of importance, Science shouldn't be so far down. The physicist always came up with a mile long list that was always drastically cut short. Every month, Cain reminded him that Atlantis was the single greatest scientific instrument that he could ever have, but until he taught the city to create popcorn, chocolate and most importantly – as even McKay could attest to – coffee, he would just have to make do with Atlantis. He eventually agreed.

Then there were Administrative supplies, like pens, CDs, file folders, and anything that he or Dr Weir required to run the city. The latter part was always a short list. Unlike the other three divisions, the two member division (three if they counted Teyla, but her responsibilities to her people and to her team consumed most of her time) seemed to keep a minimalist attitude. After all, they did not need a lot of equipment or goods to run the city, not when the space could be better used for other things, like extra clothing or the final category – personal items.

Having a personal item granted, beyond small objects like pictures and letters, was a great honour. The space, as Cain understood it, could always be put to better use. Atlantis was not as rich and luxurious as he remembered his estates to be, and those he was invited to as a guest, but it was probably much better than what most of these people were used to. Especially for Dr McKay. People may moan and groan to him about being controlling or sadistic. But then again, they'd moan and groan even louder if Dr Beckett didn't have anti-biotics or stitches, at least when it came to their own bloody wounds...

He heard the door slide shut behind him. Not the one to the hallway, but the one to the Colonel's private bathroom where he had been showering for the first time in a month. Thankfully, Cain thought to himself. Sponge bathes, no matter how long the nurse's sponge lingered on the Colonel's flesh, could not do as well as a real bath. Or pseudo bath, since they had yet to find a bathroom with a real bath in it. If and when they did, Cain had already called... "dibs" as the Colonel and Dr McKay had called it. He hadn't had a real bath in years.

Colonel Sheppard cleared his throat.

"Are you finally going to tell me how you smuggled so many personal belongings to Atlantis?" he asked, still running his finger over the cold metal cords. He knew he had to say something, anything, to stay here yet avoiding that which must be discussed. Eventually discussed. "I have a wager with Dr McKay that you bribed some girls on the Daedalus to smuggle it all within their own belongings –"

"Cain," he interrupted. "You've walked me back to my room, forced me to eat supper, and made sure that I didn't collapse in the shower."

He personally doubted that he had done all that.

"Now I'm just going to go to bed," he said, and he meant that he should leave. But he couldn't leave. Not until he discussed _that_.

He slowly turned towards the other man, pushing the guitar onto the nearby desk. That wasn't the image he wished to portray.

"Perhaps I should stay," he said, calmly with just a tint of derision that made him sound jesting. "Who knows what kind of trouble you'll land in if left alone."

"_You_ get into more trouble than I do."

"And you take my trouble in addition to your own," he shot back. "What a stupid thing to do."

"What? Save your life?" Sheppard rolled his eyes. He had that tone in his voice that he used in particular when he disagreed with Dr Weir. Cain's hand dropped back to his side.

"You can't save me, Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard."

He stared at the golden eyed boy in confusion. "What's that supposed to mean? I think I did a pretty good job of it, myself."

"From Kolya maybe," he conceded. "But you'll never save me. No one ever can. Anyone who cares enough to try – gets removed."

"What're you talking about?" he demanded, his voice cold. Colonel Sheppard was not a man to ever accept that he couldn't save everyone. It was the quality about him that drew everyone to him – but Cain recognized it for what it really was. Foolishness.

"My curse. The curse of these wicked eyes." Cain knew that he didn't need to indicate them to emphasize his point. His golden eyes were always the first feature anyone noticed in him. "I will die alone, regardless of what you do."

"That's it," the Colonel snapped. "I'm going to bed. You can be goth and emo in the morning."

Cain snatched the other man's arm. "John, listen to me! You can't do foolish things like trying to protect me. You'll only end up dead."

"You should call me that more often," the Colonel said.

"Pardon?"

"Call me John. And McKay would like you to call him Rodney, and Elizabeth would like you to call her Elizabeth. We're your friends, you should start acting –"

"You are not!"

"Yes we are! Why the hell do you think we would go for such lengths to help you?"

"Your saving-people complex," Cain replied sullenly. "You don't go so far because I'm your friend. You go so far because you can't help it."

"Damn it, Cain!" A wiry fist smashed into the metallic door frame.

"John!" The Colonel immediately shook his hand, hissing the pain out. Cain grabbed his hand away from him, holding it so that he could examine the structure of bones beneath the flesh, looking for any breaks.

"So all I have to do is nearly break my hand," he said, laughing a little between pained breaths.

"You're going to kill yourself if you go on this way," he told him. "And you're not my friends, and feel lucky for it. Everyone that I have ever cared about has died horrifically."

"Because of your eyes." The disbelief was thick, even through his heavy breathing.

"My eyes are the mark that I was born of sin," he said. "My father –" he automatically stopped. He hated talking about things like this. Actually, the only person he had ever personally told had been Dr Daniel Jackson, but that was more because his father had threatened him into sharing. But as Cain stared down at the hand, and further to the bandaged torso hidden under John's black t-shirt, he knew he had to tell him.

If John was disgusted by him, then he wouldn't sacrifice himself for him.

If John was disgusted by him...

"I am the product of my father and my mother's sin," he said, delaying the inevitable. The Colonel just looked confused. "My father raped my mother –"

"That isn't –"

"She was his sister!" Cain nearly through Sheppard's hand at him, pulling away and to himself, unconsciously wrapping his arms around himself. Two foot distance... that was the proscribed – the comfortable distance. "My Aunt Augusta. Golden eyes are a mark of incest."

The Colonel was silent. Still and silent. The kind of still he got when he came up with a brilliant idea. He was using all of his intelligent, and Cain could hear Dr McKay practically mocking with a roll of the eyes, instead of just the usual ten percent he needed to point and shoot. But Dr McKay was just mad that the Colonel still refused to attend the MENSA meetings with him. Mad that the Colonel wouldn't share in one of his favourite activities.

"So, your mother was your father's sister," he finally said. Cain through him a furious look, wandering why the Colonel's stillness hadn't produced another miracle. Like him realizing that caring about him was a death sentence.

"How does that make you cursed?" he asked.

"I..." He trailed off. He had never questioned why he was cursed before. It was so obvious that he was. He must be. It could not really be coincidence that he was surrounded by murder all of the time. It could not be coincidence that he lost everyone he ever cared about. Why didn't matter. "The original sin," he tried.

"The original sin is when Adam and Eve disobeyed God," the Colonel said.

Cain gave him an odd look. "The original sin is when Adam and Eve first indulged in their lust. The mere act of being conceived from such a sinful act makes one a sinner even when they are born."

"That's bullshit!" Then Cain remembered what Dr Jackson had told him. His home world must have been seeded by Christians of the British islands of Earth, and even though they had evolved along similar lines in customs and theology, there were still many divergences. This was probably one of them.

"And even if you're right, wouldn't that mean that everyone should be cursed, not just you?"

Logically, yes. Except if one took into account that Christ had absolved humans of the original sin by his death, so that only children of liaisons against God's will were affected... But that was neither here nor there.

"It doesn't matter why," he said. "It's a fact that I am. My father's wife who I thought was my mother – she poisoned herself because she hated me. My real mother went mad at my birth, and threw herself out the window at the sight of me! My first love Suzette died! My fiancée Emmeline! My sister Merry Weather! Meridiana! My father! Even girls or men I'd just met! I'm destined to be surrounded by death! I'm cursed to die alone! I'm cursed to never be loved!"

Cain breathed heavily, his throat sore from the unexpected fit. He never yelled. Such crude behaviour was not fitting of an Earl. _But he wasn't an Earl here,_ a nasty voice reminded him. He had left that all behind when he had abandoned his home world with Dr Jackson.

"We haven't died yet," the Colonel said, shrugging. "So you're not as cursed as you think you are."

Cain had never felt the urge so strongly to scream before. Not even his father had cultivated such a feeling in him. Why couldn't he just accept it! Why couldn't he just understand!

He grabbed at his uniform shirt, nearly ripping it as he pulled if off. Turning around, his hands clutching at the side of the desk just before John's guitar, he showed the Colonel his most loathed mark.

He had seen it may times in the mirror. Too many times the lines had been bright red, the lacerations still bleeding or still smarting. But even when they were angrily pink coloured or even the silver of his oldest scars, they were still horrid. Ugly. Disfiguring. They promised that even if someone by some great chance of luck managed to get close enough, he could never be intimate with them. For they would see. And they would run.

_"Ah, lad, I see you're awake now," Dr Beckett said as he approached the hospital bed. "You've been feverish for four –"_

_"Did you take my shirt off?" he demanded, cold fear turning his blood to ice in his veins. He didn't remember putting the hospital scrub on. _

_"No," Dr Beckett said. "You put up one hell of a fight for a sick man. Gave Major Sheppard one nasty shiner."_

_"But you didn't –"_

_"No, you managed to change yourself. It was the only way you'd get out of that shirt and into something proper. I'm not surprised you don't remember. Your fever was already nigh a hundred and three at that time."_

_They didn't – thank God – they didn't see._

This was the last argument that he had. The most damned. But at least the Colonel would be safe now.

Cain started when a cool finger ran over his back. He shivered when it ran back the way it came, but on a different elevation. The Colonel – he was tracing the scars on his back! He... He still didn't understand. Cain had never met a person so singularly oblivious.

"Who did this?"

"Alexis," Cain practically hissed, as his answer coincided with another run of his fingers. But he was still glad for the run-in to what needed to be discussed. "My father. He whipped me every night, because if I suffered, then maybe God could love me."

"That's stupid."

Cain's eyes lowered from the guitar to his hands. "... He hates – he hated me. I took his love away from him – Aunt Augusta went insane when she gave birth to me. When I visited her in the mental asylum later on, she threw herself out of the window at the sight of me."

He couldn't help but shiver at that touch. It took almost too much effort to keep still – to keep from moaning. No one, besides his father, had ever touched him there. But that man's touch... He had been kidding himself that it was a loving touch. Alexis could never bring himself to love him. Not without hating him so much more.

But _this_ touch.

It was almost too much for him.

John stopped moving his hand. Cain felt disappointed, and then angry at himself for being disappointed. He had to tell him – he told to tell someone. He had kept it inside himself for far too long.

"He takes everything away that I love," he said, his own fingers tightening. "He gives me something, then waits for me to become attached – to need it. Then he kills it, so he can see me cry. Like my pet bird. Because of him –"

"Your father is the real source of the curse," he said quietly.

Slowly, Cain nodded.

"And he's dead," John reasoned out.

Again, he nodded.

"Then the curse has been lifted."

...


End file.
